A Natural Approach to Cancer with Dr. Dominic Brandy

[Music] hello my friends and welcome to another edition of The Wellness Talk podcast I am George Batista your host and your Wellness advocate of course Wellness talk is a show that goes over the latest in health healing Nutrition Fitness everything we can do natural and non-toxic for you to live healthy uh and hopefully a long life and today I am extremely excited I think you guys are really going to enjoy this we have a great guest today today we're going to be talking to Dr Dominic Brandy he's got a fascinating story and we're going to get his insights into cancer and health in general the gut microbiome a lot of amazing things that we're going to talk about but we're also going to talk about his journey because it's it's very interesting so let me uh give you a little bit of background on Dr Brandy Dr Brandy is the founder of natural insights into cancer he has been practicing he has been a practicing medical doctor for 42 years he has published 76 articles uh nine textbook chapters in the medical literature written many consumer articles and given over 200 lectures at International Medical meetings 5 years ago he was diagnosed with a blood cancer called multiple Myoma natural insights into cancer is Dr bry's on going project to share with you what he has learned through uh scoring the medical L literature about what can be done naturally to fight this dreaded disease Dr Brandy is also the author of an amazing book called beat back cancer naturally this book includes five scientifically proven natural and plant-based ways to prevent Survive and Thrive with cancer and it is an honor for me to have him on this program Dr Brandy thank you so much for joining us today hey it's great being here I'm looking forward to it absolutely we're we're really excited to have you and um you know you've got such an an interesting journey and I'm really looking forward to your insights on on this because you know we obviously cancer it's you know it's something that you know so many people deal with and I've I've worked with people myself on the nutrition side who have had it and them working with their doctor on a conven side and I worked with them trying to boost their immune system because you know they're going through the conventional therapies and you know you see the power of how nutrition can help on that side of things as well so it's really uh important to to make sure that we understand that and I want to first kind of start off with uh a little bit of your backstory because I mean again you're you're an MD 42 years uh in you know as an MD and what was your you know being an MD obviously you're you're in that system what was your mentality like when you first became a doctor was it were you o were you specifically focused on conventional treatments for everything did you ever look at the natural side of things at all or was it basically just kind of system driven for you well what's really interesting uh about my story is I when I was 10 years old uh my mother would get Prevention magazine every month and I would read that thing from cover to cover so I've always had an interest in health and nutrition uh when I went to medical school I I will tell you that the amount of nutritional education was about two weeks and it was like a junior high school health class right uh essentially if you don't get enough vitamin C you'll get curvy if you don't get vitamin D you'll get rickets so it was very very basic and and I think that's one of the reasons why conventional doctors really don't like to tread into the Waters of giving advice on supplementation diet and so forth because they really don't have enough education about it so uh but it's been something that's always interested me in fact my practice just so your audience knows I had a plastic surgery medspot anti-aging uh practice for for over 40 years and um so I anti-aging division was something that uh I Incorporated because of my interest in health and nutrition but uh in that part of the practice I did stem cell therapies we did all kind of hormone replacement we checked vitamin levels antioxidant levels free radical levels so it was it was something that I've always been interested in and then when I got diagnosed with uh multiple Myoma which is an incurable blood cancer it was actually six years ago now okay um it it was something that took me by surprise to be quite honest with you I don't think anybody ever uh expects a diagnosis like that um but at that point I really did a deep dive into the scientific literature to find every single thing that I could possibly do from a diet and also from a lifesty perspective uh that could help me get through that disease and I was actually uh in a complete remission uh in six months which uh my doctor didn't think I would be able to do because I rejected a lot of the more toxic uh chemotherapies that he was recommending and at that point I had already been eating a whole food plant-based diet for about two months which was kind of funny I read a book called how not to die by Michael Gregor GRE yeah that book George i' I yeah I've I don't I haven't read the book book but I know the book very well because a lot of people reference that book yeah the book is about two inches thick right the hard back of it are scientific references and that was the thing that really intrigued me about that book you know being a medical doctor um you know I don't like anecdotes I I really don't think they give you much in the way of scientific evidence but in the book I mean the science was just showing over and over again that uh cultures and research cohort groups that ate more plant-based had a lower incidence of cancer cardiovascular disease type two diabetes Alzheimer's really all cause mortality so I started eating that way two months before I got diagnosed which was kind of strange the way the whole thing uh worked out but when I got diagnosed um I felt confident that that was going to help me and that's why I rejected a lot of the more toxic chemotherapies that my oncologist recommended for me and he was not happy to be quite honest with you um but in six months I got in a complete remission and he was he was floored I mean he didn't even think I was going to get into a complete remission let alone do it in six months and I've been that way uh ever since and uh the medic I'm still on medication because um Myoma isn't incurable blood cancer on very low levels and we're actually in the weaning process right now I'm actually weaning off and I'm maintaining all of my numbers in in normal value so um uh but I can share with your audience a lot of the things that I do and so forth uh that I and I also recommend to my uh my cancer patients I I I coach hundreds of cancer patients uh with lifestyle diet um I do very uh intricate rgcc uh testing um it's called onomics plus onomics extracts to find what natural products are are specifically cytotoxic to the cancer that the individual has right so uh so that's kind of where how I've really evolved into this whole uh thing of doing uh cancer lifestyle coaching for cancer patients very very interesting you know there's this concept this preconception about cancer right well you know what what people think about it it's interesting that we we actually have this conversation today because I just found out uh maybe like three days ago that a friend of mine who I've known for many many years probably since I'm a kid uh and uh who's you know he doesn't live in New York he's in uh North Carolina now but was unfortunately was just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and yeah it just like we were you know every all of us you know who know this person was was blown away by it but um I was having a conversation with somebody else who who you know we mutually know and I had mentioned because this person knows what I do and they kind of know where I come from on on the nutrition side of things and I said yeah you know I said there's you know there's a new we were talking about why why it would happen all this I said listen you know there's a lot of reasons but there's there's there's also that nutrition component as well that that plays a very important role this person told me oh nutrition has nothing to do with it and I was like Wow but you see there's there's a lot of people like maybe the majority of people that have this that have this notion that you know your lifestyle has nothing to do with this and again unfortunately it's promoted by a lot of the the conventional side of things because they all say well it just happened just came out of nowhere just you know like almost it came from space and hit you you know this type of thing and and sometimes you you know it upsets me but I I understand it because there's conditioning that that goes on with people that they get conditioned by their doctors or what what they see on television or these types of things and they don't realize the power of you know whether it's nutrition or lifestyle medicine and all these types of things and not saying it's the answer to every single thing but it's things to you know you you have to explore even I've known many people like I like I said who've done both who've done a combination of both right and it works out pretty well so I think you know it's it's sometimes it's getting through to folks that have that mindset I'm I don't know if you've had that issue on your end as far as you know You' been practicing so long you've probably had issues with people who were be like no no no no that has nothing to do with it have you have you had that oh yeah I mean it's it's the the American diet is really pretty pathetic in fact there was a CDC study uh that showed that the average American 1.8 servings of fruits or vegetables and that's counting catchup in french fries as a yeah exactly um so and and the thing is when when people uh when I start talking about eating more plant strong plant predominant plant-based uh you have to realize the National Cancer Institute recommends nine servings of fruits and vegetables for the prevention of cancer so if someone has cancer you should be eating a hell of a lot more than nine servings of fruits and vegetables per day that's right um uh and and one of the things I I stress to people is that and and this came from an an article in nature uh by Nal munki he's a he's a world-renowned genomic researcher and he stated uh in that article by the time you are diagnosed with cancer you have about 5,000 DNA mutations in that cancer cell and by the time you relapse let's say you get into a remission and then you relapse you have about 12,000 uh DNA mutations so my uh these cancer patients is I want to minimize the number of DNA mutations and we do know that plant foods have 63 times the antioxidant power compared to animal products right so free radicals are what essentially caus DNA mutation so the more antioxidants you have in your diet uh the lower free radical load you're going to have with subsequently you're going to have less DNA mutations so um so that's really my goal with a lot of my patients especially the ones that uh get into remission I I heard one of your podcast um uh and and you were talking about that like you know once you get into remission pretend like you never had cancer before how correct how would you change your life what would you do differently and that's what I really try to express to my patience when I'm coaching them I say hey you know what you were given a second chance you know you're in remission and we're going to keep in remission and you do certain steps you need to be disciplined and a lot of my patients um are very disciplined with it a lot of them have read my book they're on my website they follow me on my Instagram cancer veggie doc so they already know when I'm about so uh before I even coach them they know I'm going to be talking about eating a more plant-based diet certain supplements exercise getting enough sleep stress reduction and so forth so um so but I agree with you that it is really tough like I do weight loss counseling too you know getting some of these people to to you know talk about like I had a a weight loss consultation last night and when I talked to this person ate meat every single meal and I said well why don't you just try to like uh eliminate meat just one meal out of the three and it was like I told her to jump off a bridge or something like you know uh that uh but but the American diet is really um it is like very pathetic I mean one of the things we were talking a little bit before the show about the microbiome yeah and another CDC study showed that only three% of the American population is getting even 30 grams of fiber per day and Men between 30 to 50 0% hit 30 grams of fiber um and fiber is really the most important thing that we need to be talking about like you know everybody talks about protein the only people that get protein deficiencies or homeless people you know people in nursing homes and if you're eating enough calories you are getting enough protein if you're but we do have a fiber deficiency and and that is fiber is what feeds the gut microbiome that's right and and the gut bacteria really are the key to excellent health and a strong immune system absolutely absolutely and you're right you're right the gut is is so important and I've talked about on the show a lot especially because it's it the the gut brain connection I I talk about it all the time how that you have that two-lane Highway that's so important and where people you know think about you know fog you know they're in a fog and they don't understand why they're in a fog well you know you got to look at the gut and again this is what a lot of the conventional you know conventional sides of things they don't look at this type of stuff right but you you're absolutely on the money with that fiber and you know just making sure that your gut is is you know well make making sure that you don't have any leaky guts right any any kind of intestinal per you know permeability in those types of things it's so important and um another thing that you touched on obviously is you know the diet you know I I've seen a lot of research lately coming out on the omega-6 oils and just you know oils in general how how they how they affect health and these types of things and our diet is so full of that when you look at the Frozen stuff when you look at the packaged stuff and all that and it's it's it's no wonder why we have an epidemic of everything in society not just cancer right but it's it's pretty much everything and the the cancer rates are soaring and but it's also the heart disease rates it's also the Obesity rates it's just everything and you know unfortunately folks like you and I are a small percentage of of the population who are trying to educate people on this stuff but it's it's a tough nut to crack when you have all this big corporate stuff hanging down saying here eat this take this do this right it's it's tough oh yeah processed food that's face it it's tasty you know I mean you know just all the flavorings they put in there and so forth uh that's why it is a battle yeah um what really uh interesting about the gut microbiome a lot of people don't realize this but uh we have about 37 trillion cells in our body and that's about how many bacteria we have in our large colon yeah um and when you look at the skin and the mouth and so forth we have about a 100 trillion bacteria in our body and what's really interesting uh is that about 99% of the genes in our body are from the bacteria only 1% of our genes are our genes um which is really fascinating we only have about 20,000 genes the bacteria have have over a trillion genes um and and they really do control a lot of the immune function and that's why with cancer patients I really try to get them to go Whole Food plant-based I don't even word plant strong um you know if you tell somebody to go plant-based they're probably going to go plant strong or plant predominant but I have just learned through the years of practicing medicine that you really have to kind of if you want them to go plant-based um say plant-based because the they're probably not going to go completely plant-based um but when you uh when you understand that 70% of your immune function comes from the gut bacteria and the gut bacteria can only feed on plant Foods because that's where all fiber comes from but what's really fascinating when I got into the study of the gut microbiome there's actually one layer of cells in the in the colon they call them the colon the colonocytes and the gut bacteria actually sends signals across that one lining of colon cells and they actually direct the immune cells where to go how hard to fight when to back off for instance when the immune response is getting a little hyperactive they tell this the T regulatory cells hey you guys need to back off so they really control our immune function and and you were talking about even mood and cognition and most people don't realize this 90% of your serotonin which is your P actually is released by the gut bacteria and 50% dopamine right they also release you know Gaba melatonin 30 different neurotransmitters um so it's it's really fascinating uh how these gut bacteria really control so many aspects of our body and our immune system and our overall uh Health one other thing and you probably are familiar with this study and it's been done hundreds of times it always comes out the same where they've done fecal transplants from lean rodents and obese rodents yep um and they'll take an obese rodent do a fecal transplant into a or I'm sorry identical twins one is obese one is lean and they'll actually do a feal transplant into the rodent so it will take the obese twin trans do a feal transplant into the lean one and it'll get obese and then the opposite happens when you have the lean twin and you do a feal transplant into the obese twin into the obese rodent it'll become lean right so these um these bacteria actually uh control your your glp1 your pyy your leptin which is actually secreted by the colon cells you know everyone's familiar with wovi o all these weight loss medications where they're actually glp1 receptors that's right and when you eat a high fiber diet it actually causes the gut bacteria to release these short chain fatty acids that send the signal to the colon cells that actually release this glp1 so you can actually get the same effects that you do with OIC and wovi and all these weight loss medications just by eating more fiber um and it's really not that hard to get a lot of fiber I mean for instance um one cup of lentils is like 10 grams of fiber right you get up to 30 grams of fiber pretty easily and and there's even U are you familiar with this new drink it's called Uh Olli poop I've heard of it it I tell you what I'm addicted to it really I always use to like root beer floats and uh the root beer flavor is great but each can only has 35 calories but has nine grams of really good Botanical fiber so that's a that's a way if you drink two of those you're up to like 18 grams of fiber right there so but there's some interesting ways that you can get your fiber up to 30 grams per day yeah absolutely and yeah fiber is something I've talked about a lot on this show and definitely you know give try to give tips on different ways to do that I'm wondering talking about plant-based are you familiar you probably are but you follow uh Elston oh yeah yeah I mean I some of his lectures and so forth yeah he's he's very interes yeah thing that I don't you know in the plant-based Community there's there's um kind of a lot of debate about for instance olive oil yeah right I you know I went to one of the uh called the National Health Association um they asked me to be a vendor to sell my book there and and what was interesting before before I went in there the one of the leaders of the group said make sure you don't mention anything about olive oil because I have a I have a whole chapter on olive oil in book because a high quality extra virgin olive oil has some very potent anti-cancer activity agree agree studies in my book and and really when you look at the overall list literature uh a a high quality extra virgin olive oil in fact the one that I do recommend is called Luchini um in fact I don't know if you're familiar with consumerlab.com but I always tell people to go on there if you're debating you know what kind of olive oil to use what kind of soy milk to drink and so forth because what when I went on there just to get off track a little bit um I was using a it's called carapelli olive oil MH extra virgin so I went on consumerlab.com and I found that 25% of it was rancid yeah um so their Top Choice was uh Luchini and I think was California Olive uh uh Calia Ranch Olive Olive Ranch I think that was an the other brand but my wife and I used a Luchini you know extra virgin but it in my book um you know I mentioned that I showed how uh olive oil actually has some very potent anti-cancer effects and affects about 160 different uh genes epigenetically and I was mentioning that if you look at the perance of evidence it lowers the LDL in the apob so it has a positive effect on atherosclerosis it's not a negative effect the way that estin and some of the group yeah so I completely agree with that actually that's one of the that's one of the places where eselon and I differ uh is that because obviously he's no oil at all and you know I'm the type of person that if you know if I'm eating a salad um olive oil is going to go on my salad okay uh now I don't put dressing on it I don't put all this heavy dressing or anything else but I like to Spritz a little olive oil onto my salad and I do have an extra virgin olive oil that I use and I enjoyed it it to me it enhances the FL you know nice flavor enhancer but I know that I'm you know I'm also getting in the good stuff you know it's very important for me me well what people don't realize too and I always mention this to these people that tell people to eat no oil is that when you eat a salad if there's no oil on that or fat now they a lot of them put nuts on there for example right right but if you don't have I I first off I think extra virgin olive oil is is is healthy and anti-cancer it helps you absorb all the fat soluble vitamins minerals phytonutrients because if you don't have fat you're not going to absorb those nutrients that's right um so it gives you that added uh benefit the other thing I always tell these people is that you don't drink olive oil I mean like time you use olive oil you're using it on vegetables and I've even heard some people uh state that maybe that's one of the reasons why people on the Mediterranean diet live longer is because they're eating more vegetables I mean they use a lot of olive oil but if you're using olive oil you're eating a lot of vegetables because you're not drinking St exactly so I I think that's an interesting concept but I think personally I think a high quality extraversion yep you know like there are some really bad when you go on consumer lab and you read some of those uh analyses that they've done I mean it's some of these don't even have olive oil in them I mean it really is quite mindblowing uh how people can put products out there and and like be like totally uh deceptive uh with their with their uh selling people yeah it's it's and said and again this is why this is why you know doctors like yourself and and you know have to educate because you know the average a lot of the average person out there they they don't know this stuff um I want to get your thoughts on you know kind of going back to cancer for a second what are your thoughts on the on and the war on cancer the where we've come you know obviously Nixon you know talked about that you know in the 70s and we're going to put this you know all this pressure and we're going to you know he his his goal was to eradicate cancer which I don't know how you would do that but but uh and now we've got you know there's there's talk of vaccines that you know they they're trying to get you know cancer vaccines and that type of stuff so I just want to kind of get your thought of the industry and kind of how far we've come well I think for um childhood leukemias we've made like tremendous progress um my cancer for example multiple Myoma 20 years ago um people on average lived about one and a half years and they were pretty much dead because there really wasn't anything that you could do I I remember I had a I actually had a nurse that worked for me she was about 60 years old dressed meticulously looked like she was about 40 she had my alom and I remember her asking me questions about it and uh you know i' doing some research for her and so forth and and she was dead like in a year and a half in fact my one colle just didn't even treat my Aloma patients 20 years ago because he said it was too depressing right um so we we have made progress um like breast cancer a lot of breast cancer patients uh can live a very long uh life uh and you know they actually have cure rates with that but I think where it's it's really changed is that and I think it's a good thing I think that the conventional treatments are starting to focus more on the immune system rather than these chemotherapeutic yeah um know they have these you know targeted drugs monoclonal antibodies and I I think that that is really where uh all the science and all the research is is headed because they just realized that these chemother therapeutic drugs are really I mean they are so toxic yeah that a lot of times you actually die of the chemo before you would actually die that's right so so my basic philosophy is I really do believe in conventional and alternative um I have I will just tell you I have had patients that have I had one young girl it was about three months ago her her husband she was dead she was 32 years old she got diagnosed with breast cancer at 29 I guess someone in her family had chemo and she swore she would never get chemos so she did the Gerson Therapy for like a year and it kept getting worse then she went to an alternative clinic and in Texas they did mistletoe with methylene blue and ozone I believe and then it just kept getting worse than then she finally came to me she was like in a stage four time she came to me and I said hey you know what you need to get on some conventional therapy here yeah yeah and um and at that point when you're a stage four I mean it it is like chugging along at like a very quick rate I mean there are so many DNA mutations and that cancer has made so many adaptations patient the only thing that I can really do at that point is to help that patients's quality of life and give them a little bit more prolongation sure of their life but I but I've had I've had other patients that have done the same thing they just tried to go completely alternative and they really got themselves into deep trouble so I I really believe in conventional but trying to keep the dosages at a low level or do it metronomically where you give small increments more frequently rather than one giant dose for instance every month toxicity but um but I do think we are making progress and I think there are more medical doctors that are getting interested in nutrition that kind of looking at hey you know what you just can't be you know treating this with these toxic medications you really have to approach it from a holistic approach where you're building the immune system you know you're making sure the Pati getting enough sleep they're keeping their stress reductions down they're eating high quality foods and there's a lot of different supplements that I do recommend that I utilize based on this rgcc testing that I do where the cancer is actually exposed to 53 different natural uh extracts then um rgcc lab which is uh headquartered in northern Greece and they have 29 facilities throughout the world they actually expose um the cancer cells and it's basically done through a blood test okay um for instance I have a woman I just ordered it on in in Pittsburgh so she I ordered a a FLOTUS come to her house a package is sent to the house um the fotus does the blood it sent to grease they send the results to me in about two weeks so I get to see how that cancer responds to 53 different natural extracts and some of them are right for instance like turmeric melatonin things R trol so for instance the the last report that I got I was kind of surprised that it had no sensitivity to melatonin the Melatonin has some very potent anti-cancer effects so I didn't recommend that for her right um so that's that's something that um that I really believe helps people uh in their battle against cancer is adding some uh supplementation to go along with a conventional therapy to give them an extra boost do you um let's say someone doesn't have cancer but they want to prevent it you know Are there specific strategies you recommend like just you know General supplements that somebody should be on just to kind of for General Health well One supplement that I uh that I think everyone first off I think everyone should take a high quality multivitamin agree agree I have a men's vault multivitamin women's and I think I think the American diet is so deficient even if you're eating what most people would think would be a high quality diet most Americans are actually deficient in a lot of B vitamins and a lot of it really has to do with the way the soil is made yes that's right so um if you eat organic you're going to get high levels of uh of you know high quality uh like food products but the one aside from a multivitamin the one herb that I think everyone should take his turmeric I I heard I saw you did a podcast on yep there was a study on H kirkum where uh actually decreased the amount of ATP formation uh in the cancer cells decreased angiogenesis which is the ability of the cancer to actually develop new blood vessels and so forth but termer I mean there have been I the last time I read there over like 10,000 studies on turmeric yes for various purposes and probably over 3,000 involving its anti-cancer properties but uh but I do know for a fact that turmeric affects 80 different cancer signaling Pathways so um in fact with the the cancer that I have multiple Myoma um there's a couple studies I actually have referenced in my book where they took patients that had mgus mgus is actually the precursor of multiple my so it's not a full-blown Myoma so it's almost like having early prostate cancer in a way but what they did is they uh it was a randomized controlled study and they put half the group on turmeric and the other group was just the placebo and what they found is the m Spike which is one of the biomarkers of mgus it and they put these people on eight grams per day it was four grams in the morning four grams at night uh with the turmeric uh it actually decreased the M Spike by 33% look at that pretty trtic and they repeated the study was done in Australia was golm bick's group MH when they repeated it they got the same result so um so I actually have gotten my on call just he recommends per call his patience now so um so I had an effect on him because he saw you know the kind of results that I was getting but but I would say that would be the one herb that I would definitely recommend uh patients take and also I think vitamin D is something especially up up in New York yeah I live um you know we don't get a lot of sunshine especially in the uh you know the winter time but but we definitely know and I think we started to get a lot of that information through covid we were y That's Right were vitamin D deficient were much more prone to getting covid so it definitely has a like an amazing effect on the immune system and I try to keep cancer patients levels uh between 80 to 100 uh you go when you see the lab it'll say like from 30 to 60 is normal but I really try to get them up around 80 to 100 because I think that's really where you get the optimum uh amuno effect yeah absolutely it's funny that you say that because um I was talking about vitamin D the other day uh on one of my shows talking about how abysmal the the actual recommendations are you know you talking about 600 here 800 here and I'm like really you basically preventing rickets you know that's pretty much it and you know but and again it's probably something that you know the the doctors you know get trained on you know if if if that maybe but um but we're looking at I mean it's crazy because they what one of the things they talked about in the study that I was referencing was just to get them to the optimal levels they had to give them they had to start them out to at 2,000 units and it took them I forget how much to get to 40 NS but then there was another section of that study where people weren't responding they had to give them 10,000 just to get them to the same level oh I I I have a patient recently um to get him in between 80 to 100 he had to take 20,000 look at that look at that and I I personally have found that um if you're not getting Sunshine it it's really hard to jack up those um I actually have a there's a special kind of a sunlamp uh that you can get it on Amazon I think like $350 where you could you know shine it on your back or whatever for like 10 minutes a day and and the study that was done on this special kind of a uh it was a kind of a UV lamp uh it definitely helped increase the uh the vitamin D levels in in the body but but like I said you know I mean I personally take about 10,000 international units per day to keep my levels between 80 to 100 um and everyone's different I mean some could take 2,000 and get it between 80 to 100 so everybody metabolism is a little bit different but I you know one of the things I do strongly recommend is for people to ask their uh family doctor their internist PCP to get a vitamin D level on them because U you will be amazed uh the chances are extremely high that the levels are going to be low there was one study I actually read uh it was in a practice uh up north um in one of the northern states but 95% of the patients had suboptimal vitamin D level and I and I think that's one of the reasons people get a lot of these viruses and so forth I mean I like one thing that blows people's mind I mean I have an immune cancer in the six years I've had that I haven't even had a cold look at that you know my wife had covid my my three kids all had Co I was around them I was hugging them and kiss know like I just I never got any infectious disease I didn't even get a cold so um so I do think um you know keeping your vitamin D level having a high quality diet eating a lot of fiber you know making sure you have a health healthy gut microbiome to enhance that immune function that I was talking about before I don't think people should be getting these viruses every winter agree agree and yeah I been you know it's funny you say that because I'm you know I've been around a lot of people you know in certain circles and they're all sick and they're looking at me like I'm crazy because I'm not and I'm like uh folks you know there's you know that that that should be a question for you to be curious about why I'm not getting sick because I was the guy who got bronchitis every year I was the guy who was you know who who was this close to pneumonia a couple of times back in the day when I was not doing this stuff and and even when covid came around Co was a cold to me basically and that and I'm talking about the the the first strain was a cold and I took care of some uh family members who had it who were laid out and I took care of them just as if they would have had a cold you know but the and you know again this should be a question for people to be C okay what is this person doing why is it that they're not getting sick and I'm over here laid out everywhere and I mean because again that's the question that I used to ask myself about other people when I used to get bronchitis all the time you know so people need to be asking those questions one of one of the other things that people need to understand and and I I stress this to my cancer patients you need to exercise every single day yeah doesn't have to be a prolonged workout I think I think a lot of people think they got to do these half hour one hour workouts you know in my book I have a study and there was actually another study that came out recently that had pretty much the same results um that even six minutes of exercise increases your natural killer cell activity by 50% and there was a recent study that came out that was like five minutes and it was about the same enhancement of the natural killer cell activity and natural killer cells are the cells that actually kill cancer cells but but if you look at some of this statistics especially with breast cancer I mean they are actually like totally mindblowing you know people that have uh breast cancer remission for example uh if they just walk 30 minutes per day they lower their chance of a relapse by 24% wow if they jog twoth thirds of a mile they lower it by 40% and if they like run 2.3 miles per day they lower it by 95% which a chemo drug can't even do that nope that's right so I really stressed my patients to do some exercise every day in fact I have a resistance band routine uh that I do every day it takes me about 15 minutes to get through the whole thing and I actually send all of my patients that video and I tell them listen if you have seven minutes cut it in half like I usually do 40 reps of each body part do 20 reps you'll get through the whole thing and sometimes I do if I'm in a hurry I'll just I'll just do half of what I normally do but I make sure I go through that resistance band routine you know every day and I do think building muscle is super important for really all people as they age but especially cancer patients because when you lose muscle you lose insulin sensitivity yep and what most people don't realize is that when you lose insulin sensitivity your glucose levels go up and I think everybody knows the saying you know cancer loves sugar and it does thrive on sugar it utilizes a ton of sugar just to just to survive but I think the one thing that a lot of people don't know is that insulin is one of the most powerful cancer growth stimulators in your body so when you're insulin uh resistant your blood sugar levels go up which is bad for cancer but also your insulin levels go up so that's that's kind of a you know a double-edged sword uh in in in the in when you're trying to you know fight this cancer you know you're basically increasing two growth factors that makes the battle a hell of a lot harder yeah agree agreed yeah absolutely and you know kind of talking about exercise you know I've often said on the show that exercise is one of the best drugs there is Bar None in my it's funny cuz I did a I did a show on um it was a while back back but it was exercise versus drugs and it was literally comparing the two as far as percentages and stuff and it is amazing how exercise you know in many of these beat out whatever drug you want to think of and including they just I was just looking at a study the other day about they were talking about exercise versus anti-depressant oh and I mean it was not even it was a joke I was like holy cow oh it's not yeah it's yeah in fact I have I think I have like three scientific references on that in my book where they compared exercise to various anti-depressants and it worked actually better than the anti that's right side effects in fact it's all benefit that that's one of the things I say in my book you know not only do you not have depression you know you feel better you look better um you have less disease uh so it's and and one of the statements I made in my book was if you could put it in a pill everybody in the world would be taking it for sure that's right unbelievable unbelievable one question I wanted to ask you was so you know plant-based diet is you know it can be tough for people like and you you alluded to that uh earlier so what are some tips on if somebody wants to get started on it you know they're not sure they know it's healthy they know they probably should be doing it but uh you know what's a good place for them to start and then if they do start how is a how what's a good way for them to kind of stay on it well one of the things I do on my uh Instagram site cancer veggie doc like to fact today as soon as I'm done here I'm going to do a a recipe video I do uh I do two a week and then every week I do two educational videos where I kind of have this blackdrop I have behind me that's where I do my videos um but there are so many great Instagram sites today where you have these amazing vegan cooks that come up with these most most amazing most delicious meals you could ever dream of um so one of the things I do when I do my uh my cancer lifestyle coaching consults I sent them a long letter the next day there's like 10 different books that I recommend really good one is called the Blue zones kitchen cookbook um and you're probably familiar with the blue zones yeah of course know they're the areas of the world long there's some amazing recipes in there um but but I I think one of the things that you can do and there's there's actually a book called The vegan starter uh the it's called the vegan starter book by Neil Bernard that one of the things he States in there is you know go to like some different restaurants go to like an Italian restaurant Mexican restaurant Chinese restaurant Thai restaurant you'll find all kind of different meals there that you can eat my wife and I we eat it we eat out a lot and we go to those types of restaurants but I think I think the key is to add a recipe every week like learn a recipe maybe go on Instagram um and try a recipe just maybe do a plant-based lunch you know uh one week and then maybe the next week at a plant-based you know dinner and then every every week you're kind of learning a recipe and they're just kind of gradually introducing it and and one of the other reasons I think it's good to do it that way is if you just go full-blown right away I mean when when you eat that much fiber when you're used to eating like maybe fiber I mean you're gonna be passing a lot of gas that's right that's right but once you acclimate to that it's it's not an issue my wife and I have no issues at all with having excessive gas or anything like that so your your microbiota will start adapting to that and in fact you got bacteria D very very quickly I don't know if you're familiar with a study that was in nature uh I think it was in 2014 La David Lawrence's group but they they basically broke them into two different groups one was a carnivore diet one was a plant-based diet and they they evaluated their microbiome for every day for five days what they found was in five days the microbiome dramatically shifted the people in the plant-based group they had a a tremendous increased proliferation of the beneficial bacteria the pathogenic bacteria start getting snuffed out the people on the carnivore died the pathogenic bacteria very quickly started to proliferate and was like snuffing out the beneficial bacteria so you can change the gut microbiome very quickly so if you are gradually introducing some of these different recipes it gives your gut a chance to kind of adapt allows you adapt a little bit to maybe having a little bit more gas than you're used to having um but I think that's probably the best best way to do it now me I just went in full Brun kind of person you know if I decide to do something I'm just going to do it but I think learning the recipes and realizing that there are some amazing recipes out there that are so tasty in fact my wife and I enjoy eating way more than we did when we were eating meat with every meal you know we were kind of getting a habit you have some chicken have a little vegetable maybe potato and salad or something um but my wife has become an excellent vegan cook and and we always have some amazing uh dinners every night I mean it really has made our life much Fuller from the perspective of delicious food but also having great health and I think that's one of the the misconceptions for people uh who eat plant or who want to eat plant base where thinking about it because they think that it's just going to be bland food they think they it's going to be very tasteless and all that but again it's how you prepare the food right and you like you're saying there there's great recipes that show you exactly how to prepare it with the seasoning which with everything that needs to be you know put in there to make it delicious and that's again people need to understand that yeah yeah I I tell you what have you ever had a vegan brownie I actually use avocados as the fat and it's like I mean it's the tastiest brownie you will ever eat in fact I have I have recipes for you know vegan brownies on my in fact I I put a lot of recipes with kind of snack foods too for people just to realize that hey you know what you can have dessert when you're full food plant-based you can live a you very full life and you know have some amazingly tasty food you know it's funny you say that because a friend of mine uh his wife introduced me to a vegan brownie and I tasted it I just had a little taste and I was like holy cow this is really good so I said give me that recipe so I got the recipe and uh I'm not great in the kitchen but my wife and my daughter both are and my daughter she's 17 now but she's she's gotten into cooking and she's starting to really you know she picks recipes from Instagram or whatever and she'll start just messing around so I gave her this recipe and sure enough for Thanksgiving that was one of our desserts and they came out fantastic it was so good and even my daughter who's a Critic of of all this when she ate it she was like Dad this is this is not bad at all I'm into this I was like you see I said you it can work so believe me I I you know that recipe now is is firmly implanted in my house but every every T um like on Monday I have to take a like a steroid for part of my treatment sure so Tuesdays my stomach feels a little you know uneasy um but my wife makes an amazing mac and cheese I mean it's incredible and and it's basically made with cashew oh wow a lot of the cheeses that are made uh when you're eating whole food plantbased are made with cashews but it it's incredible I mean it is in fact uh this past weekend we were watching the Steeler game and she saw a recipe on uh it was Forks Over Knives magazine it com month and they have some great recipes by the way uh but she made a it was a spinach like kind of artichoke dip but I mean this thing was like if if you gave that someone that wasn't a vegan there's no way in hell they would know that that was a a plant-based dip amazing it's incredible love that I love that so that's yes so absolutely folks just definitely check that check that out as well um I want to give your website here first uh that's natural insights into cancer.com for folks who want to take a look at your work take a look and there's a lot of great resources on that website by the way so I suggest everybody definitely take a look at it and uh also your book and that's beatback cancer naturally right right and and on or on my website on your website as well okay great so yeah definitely check out that book but um I want everybody to you know take a look at that and really again you know great resources great information on there and um if folks want to like get in contact with you they can do it through the website yeah typically they go through there like if they want a consultation for example in virtual meeting they'll it'll just kind of guide you through the prompts or if they want to get you know different kind of lab testing you know if they hit shop lab testing and then once you sign up for that for example then I contact you uh and I you know set up either a meeting uh or lab testing like I I send you a letter how to I send you for instance with the quest uh testing I send you a lab sheet you basically take it the quest insurance ins pretty much covers the whole thing I do charge for the interpretation and then after I get the results I send a letter and then I do a follow-up consult just to get all the norm the values going toward normal but uh but if they go on the website you the prompts are pretty uh clear excellent excellent all right so I I invite all my listeners and viewers to definitely check out the information because uh it's very very informative Dr Brandy I want to thank you so much for your insights and thank you for being on the show today hey it was great enjoyed convers all right so we be right back all right folks lot of information there I hope you took notes and I really hope you enjoyed the conversation because uh you know the more you can do to take responsibility for your health uh you know obviously you know you put the odds in your favor to not have to deal with cancer heart disease obesity any of these types of things but Dr Brandy gave a lot of great information so just make sure you check it out so thank you very much for joining me this week as always make sure you take care of yourselves take care of each other and as always control your health have a great [Music] day